Where the streets have a name

The pavement is quite cracked along Fries Ave

Extent of paved areas in the region.

One unusual aspect of the PoLA layout is the high fraction of layout area that is paved. In the prototype, nearly all the area I am modeling is paved with varying grades of concrete or asphalt. Therefore I plan to pave a lot of the layout too, but I am also going to have a little more ballasted track and some open dirt and grass fields for variety. I just like using my new static grass machine.

Before I started adding the pavement pieces, I painted the track. I used Vallejo acrylic polyurethane surface primer. It sticks well to the track and is relatively nontoxic when spraying in an open room. Still, I wore my respirator, opened the window, and turned on the spray booth on the other side of the room.  Before spraying I wiped the track with an alcohol soaked rag to clean model release and solder flux. I used a mix of black, gray and Israeli Desert Sand Gray, plus a shot of Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver to the paint bowl.

Then I test ran some trains to make sure electrical pickup was not compromised. There were a few spots where I needed to make adjustments to  the track and add some additional feeders. A good portion of the painted track will be covered by pavement, but I painted it all anyway.

I am using Taskboard to make the paved surfaces. It is easy to work, and has an slightly rough texture that looks like pavement when painted.  I will cover this in more detail in the book.